NY Times Article on the Singing Actor

The key point of Peter Mattei's approach to opera is that one cannot separate the acting from the singing. One cannot learn to act and sing separately and subsequently try to put them together. They go hand in hand from the outset. The article is right. Conservatories do not teach acting, let alone teach acting and singing together. The acting is but a reflection of the character's heart and mind at any given moment and if we are not attuned to that character, we cannot give expression to that character with our voice. In short, we have nothing really to say to our audience. If that is the case, our audience, and hence the theater will pass us by. We might have the best voice in the world, but if it is not saying anything, we have failed to capitalize on our talent. We have failed as artists. We have failed ourselves.

Therefore, it is necessary to have a whole picture of your opera and of every character in that opera. Your libretto is like a novel. You read a novel and you are familiar with every character in that novel, otherwise you won't find the novel interesting enough to hold your attention. But YOU have to hold the audience's attention and you can only do that by acting out the novel or, rather, the libretto. If you are divorced from the feelings, the wishes, the aims, the emotions of every other character, how can you portray this novel? How can you even portray your own character, for in opera, doesn't your own character respond to the actions of some other character/characters?Hence, you can never stop refreshing your knowledge of the libretto. You will discover more and more in that libretto each and every time you read it. There is an old saying in opera and drama: "Choreograph your every movement before you put a foot on the stage." It is true, and by doing so, you are also choreographing your singing lines. Your singing lines go hand in hand with your body and thoughts and your body and thoughts go hand in hand with the character you are playing. There is also a saying in opera and drama: "Leave your ego and yourself behind when you enter the stage door." Well, leave your ego and self behind in Fort Washington Avenue when you enter the door for rehearsal. Your characters have very little in common with yourself. Sometimes your characters are downright nasty so you cannot be your usual charming, warm, lovable self. By all means be yourself if all you want to do is to sit in the audience to watch someone else perform, but not if you want to stand on the boards before your audience to portray a believable character of an opera.

I have often advised you to rehearse your role in front of a mirror. See what your audience is seeing. I was on the stage from the age of five and over the years have personally known many fine theatrical actors but just a tiny handful of good singing actors. Each and everyone of them rehearsed before a mirror. That was the video- camera of their era. They were sure of their movements on the stage. They could cover any miscue by lesser actors or any stage accident that might occur. Their facial expressions and bodies mirrored the soul of each character they played. Starting from today, try it! It might seem strange if you have never done it before. But after a while, as you get to sing more characters, you will come to a point where you don't recognize any semblance of yourself in the mirror. When that happens, you are truly attuned to the character you are playing, and you can say, "Now I'm starting to get somewhere!" And you will discover that you have an infinite number of voices within your particular singing range, because when that happens, it is the character's voice that issues from your body. You are simply the vehicle through which the character communicates to the world and that's what your audience came to see and hear.